Thursday, April 21, 2016

Tesla Changed Cars Forever. Now It Must Deliver - Bloomberg

"It was the night of the unveiling. Nineteen minutes into his big talk, Elon Musk finally revealed what everyone had come to see. Three of Tesla Motor Inc.’s Model 3 prototypes rolled onto stage. But it was the next revelation that brought the house down: Tesla had already taken in more than 115,000 reservations that day, each with a $1,000 deposit—sight unseen. The crowd swooned. The media roared.
In the weeks that followed, reservations jumped to about 400,000—almost four times the total number of cars Tesla has produced over the last eight years. As the dust settles on this achievement—an affordable, practical, desirable electric car—we’ve been pulling together data to put it in historical context. The 10 charts below show how much Tesla's new metal box with wheels may change our world, but they also show how everything else needs to go exactly right if that's going to happen."